FINLAND & PALESTINE Proceedings of a Joint Workshop

For particular reasons (see Isotalo 1994), classical Orientalism
was willing to exclude the 'sociological' study of the Orient
from its field. Gunnar landtman was a Docent of Sociology at
the University of Helsinki in 1910-27 and a temporary professor
in 1927-40. He was also Professor of Philosophy in 1922-46.
In other words, he was both Docent of Sociology and Professor
of Social and Moral Philosophy for five years. The 1920s and
the 1930s was a slow period for research in Finland. For this
reason, one might have expected a battle between different
fields of research, especially because the scarce financial resources
were divided on the basis of arguments related to language.
The Finnish nationalist ideology also affected the research
in question.
As Hilma Granqvist started planning her dissertation in the
1920s, she studied social and moral philosophy. When Granqvist
told her plans to Gunnar Landtman, he approved of Granqvist's
idea and suggested that she study women in the Old Testament.
Landtman also arranged for Granqvist access to archives
in Berlin, so that she could examine her topic thoroughly
(Widen 1989, 27). From Berlin Granqvist joined an archeological
research expedition to Jerusalem in order to get to know
the scene of the Bible at first hand. In Palestine Granqvist came
to the conclusion that research was to be done among living
people, 'I needed to live among the people, hear them talk
about themselves, make record while they spoke of their life,
customs and ways of looking at things' (Granqvist 1932, 2).
Granqvist stayed in Palestine after the course in Archeology
and chose the Muslim village of Artas as her object of study.
That is to say that Granqvist gave up her initial topic of women
in the Old Testament. Had she kept her initial topic, she would
for one thing have studied the Hebrew and Jewish women in
the Bible; for another thing, she would have studied the past.
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